laugher, well experienced, a black woman i keep seeing her as. now let's remember, this was all from the early '80s. he didn't meet michelle until 1989. and, mary? >> and you know, john, i hate to be a spoil alert but i read those letters. nothing salacious. >> the future presidents have to worry about facebook postings. "erin burnett outfront" starts right now. good evening, everyone. i'm erin burnett. "outfront" tonight, the debt. tonight $15.6 trillion. so you may say how did we get here? well, check out the top three reasons. number one, the price tag for the bush tax cuts. $1.8 trillion.

number two, the cost of the wars in iraq and afghanistan. $1.3 trillion at this moment. a distant third, the president's stimulus plan, $831 billion. never thought $831 billion would look cheap. well, here's another powerful number. right now this country is paying $224 billion a year in interest on our debt and that number is mushrooming. it becomes an exponential problem. by 2020 we will be paying $544 billion in interest alone. if you want to see something really scary, let's compare that $544 billion to medicare. by 2020 in the year we're paying $544 billion in interest, medicare will cost a mere $279 billion. we'll be paying almost double that just in interest on our debt. now, you may say that's clearly foul and bad and terrible things, but some people believe that spending more is the best way to get this country growing again, to grow out of our problem. paul krugman said the stimulus

plan was not big enough. he wants here $800 billion on top of what we already spent and he is not alone in arguing for more spending, not less. former treasury secretary larry summers wrote in this week's "financial times" and in the "washington post" a country that pursues austerity to the point where its economy is driven into a downward spiral does its creditors no favor. as in if you keep cutting and earning less, you have less money to pay back the interest and the interest doesn't get smaller. we checked in with our outfront strike team made up of ceos, entrepreneurs, innovators, they overwhelmingly say no to more stimulus. john donohoe wrote the biggest threat to the economy is the growing deficit. we need to get simpson /bowles implemented soon after the election. and stewart miller told me we need to let the free markets work and start to focus on deficit reduction. you can see more about our strike team as always on our blog. but now one man who has made the fight against government

spending his mission, senator tom coburn of oklahoma. he's the author of the new book entitled "the debt bomb." he is outfront tonight and good to see you, sir, in person. >> good to see you. >> i want to cut right to the chase here about one thing. you hate debt. you think we're in over our heads. but you are open, and this is really important, you are open to taxes to revenue as a way to get out of this problem. >> sure. >> so not just cutting as larry summers said may be negative but also raising revenue. >> well, there's two points. one is if you want to have increased spending, the best way to have increased spending is to have the private sector do it. we have over $2 trillion sitting on the sidelines right now that is not being spent because there's no confidence that congress is running the country in a way that will create some certitude that you would put that money at risk. so you could have a combination of revenue increases, you can flatten -- broaden the base and

flatten the rates and also pay for it by trimming some of the wasteful spending that nobody truly benefits other than those directly hired and wasting the spending, and you can accomplish what everybody wants to accomplish. but i would contend it's much better if we have that $2 trillion come into the economy than we borrow $800 billion and put it into the economy because the market will allocate it and get better returns on it. >> you were part of the gang of six, democrats, republicans. mark warner comes on this show and everybody seems very reasonable. yes, some people are going to pay more. i want a combination of things, i want cuts. all right. but then there's people like grover norquist and he is, you've called it a purity test that he makes republicans sign. why is that not helpful? >> first of all, it's not helpful because he's the author and developer of what a tax increase is, which is ridiculous. the senate voted for two of my amendments, one to eliminate the

blending requirement on ethanol. he called that a tax increase. that was nothing but spending through the tax codes. >> a subsidy. >> not a subsidy. they have a subsidy besides that. this is just a tax benefit. it's spending. and so you can't allow somebody from the outside to determine what in fact it is. the other thing is we eliminated a tax break for the hollywood producers. 38 republicans voted for that. so there's not a clear definition of what violates mr. norquist's code but the vast majority of republicans don't agree with him of what that is. >> so obviously -- i remember when jon huntsman was the one who was brave who said i'm not going to sign the pledge. >> the question is, is what's our commitment? our commitment ought to be the commitment to the constitution and limited government that would breed the best and healthiest and most vigorous economy in the world. that's where we sign on the line and that's what we swear to when

we come into congress. >> i want to just play a quick sound bite from paul krugman making the case for another $800 billion and get your reaction. here he is. >> we've had an overwhelming vindication of the ideas that say this is the time for governments to spend, this is the time not to cut back. the urgent priority is jobs, deficits should wait and yet that's an argument nobody wants to hear in power because it's inconvenient for inner circles. i have to say in the end it's inconvenient for the 1% or the 0.1%. >> what's your reaction to him? >> i go back to what i said before. first of all, where are we going to borrow the money? the federal reserve is just printing money. the impact of $800 billion, let's talk about what that impact is. let's say that he's right and it has positive impact with the economy. but adding that to the debt, we've got one in two college graduates right now that can't get a full-time job.

it means your ira ten years from now will not have but half the purchasing power it has today. and it means if you have a home, your home value is going lower, not higher. so that's a pure kanesian argument. the way you get there is to build the confidence and do the things as congress to get people the money that's sitting on the side now. if you look at the numbers, the velocity of money right now, and i'm not sure all your listeners are familiar with that. but the fact is we're at the lowest level we've ever recorded in terms of velocity. all the money is sitting there to be loaned but there's no demand for it. the reason there's no demand is there's no confidence. our biggest deficit, is a deficit of leadership both in congress and at the white house because we have to rebuild confidence in this country. we ought to have leadership that's talking about here's the problems, they're all solvable, let's work together to solve them. >> senator, thank you very much. obviously senator coburn, a

member of the gang of six, republicans, democrats working together. we hope there's a lot more of that. outfront story too is next. still outfront, sex assault in the city. >> there are a lot of women who have strong concerns right now. >> a dissident's dilemma. >> chen and his family have been threatened. >> all this outfront when we come back. and a choice. take advil now and maybe up to four in a day. or choose aleve and two pills for a day free of pain. way to go, coach. ♪ how did i get here? dumb luck? or good decisions?

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ahead, outfront what appears to be a rape epidemic in an american town, and a cloak and dagger. tom clancy-type international entrying story involving, of course, america and china. but first, our second outfront story tonight. the day after president obama's surprise trip to afghanistan where he made headlines on the war while marking the anniversary of osama bin laden's killing, mitt romney wanted to bring the focus back home. >> people ask me, well, what would you do to get the economy going? i say well, look at what the president has done and do the opposite. americans are tired of being tired of this economy and of this president and they want real change. >> john avlon, riann and jamal

are with me now. everyone was picking on the president for a few days about politicizing the death of osama bin laden. well, you know what, if they're going to say you're doing it, then you show up on the one-year anniversary and give your big speech and hit a home run. >> that's right. you bigfoot it with the bully pulpit and that's what he did and it shut everybody up. i think the romney camp got the message a little belatedly that arguing against bin laden was a loser. concede the point, move it back to the economy, and that's what you heard him doing here today, using a sense of humor which is always good. >> it looked like what he tried to do, as we said. the president punked mitt romney, put him in a position where all he could say was, yes, good job, sir, basically. >> that's absolutely right. when you think about george h.w. bush, for example, he was a genuine war hero and achieved a tremendous military victory on behalf of the united states in the gulf war. guess what, no one cared.

by the time november of 1992 rolled around, americans decided, fair enough, we were excited about you a couple of years ago, we're not anymore. >> jamal, was there any downside to the president -- everybody is talking about people who weren't even born when this war started are going to be occupying iraq -- afghanistan, sorry, through the year 2025. but clearly the president thinks any downside there is well worth the big boost he got last night. the cheering of the troops surrounding their commander in chief. >> yeah. most americans really want to see the president of the united states, any president and the troops and honor the troops. so even if they don't support the war, they do support the troops and american effort, wherever it is the troops may be. so the president i think smartly got himself very associated with that. the president likes to play spades. in spades, i think he slammed the big joker down on the table yesterday and kind of scared mitt romney back -- set him back a little bit. but the romney campaign has to

be very careful, the democrats lived through this in 2004 running against president bush. you can't throw everything that you have at that income bent. you've got to be very disciplined about going at the economy, if that's your message, sticking to it and not getting distracted by these other issues. >> all right. let's get distracted for a moment since you've given me the segment. this is just, i mean -- you know, everybody has people like this in their past in some way, shape or form. publishing kpermts from an upcoming book called "barack obama the story" which has diary entries from a woman named genevieve cook whom the president dated in 1984. she said the first time she told the president she loved him, which means he was loveable, there's the good side, he said thank you. well, maybe he was nervous. okay. she also wrote, quote, his warmth can be deceptive, though he speaks sweet words and can be open and trusting, there is also

that coolness. i began to have an inkling about th some things about him that could get to him. then she said he still intrigues me in her diary. >> this is how america feels about barack obama or how they felt about him in 2008. he was kind of cool, he had this demeanor and easy charm. but wait, does he really -- you have to win him over. those are the kind of people you love the most. >> the ones who won't love you back, jamal? >> the unrequited love of the american people? >> it's genius, certainly in terms of wooing. >> yeah, i think, first of all, this is a 30-year-old relationship and lord knows the last thing any of us want is dredging up old significant others and have them testify on your behalf 20 years later. but there's a great moment in history where bess truman is burning harry truman's love

letters. he says bess, what are you doing, think of history. and bess truman says, i am. you maybe wish that your ex-girlfriends had done that if you were president. >> absolutely. but you know all these presidents have some kind of thing, you know, all the pop psychologists talk about this. there's some kind of yearning or character thing that goes on with presidents. and whether it's bill clinton's desire to be loved by everybody or george w. bush and his struggles with alcohol or, you know, barack obama and his kind of cool aloofness, there's always something about them that's a little bit -- you know, can be examined by the pop psychologists. >> they all have father issues. that's nice. let's blame it on the fathers for once and not the mothers. thanks to all three of you. eric, mitt romney's main man, outfront next in story three. still outfront, a dissident's dilemma. >> chen and his family have been threatened.

>> hazed to death. >> his anger because no one has been arrested. >> all this outfront in our second half. [ male announcer ] this is the at&t network. a living, breathing intelligence helping business, do more business. in here, opportunities are created and protected. gonna need more wool! demand is instantly recognized and securely acted on across the company. around the world. turning a new trend, into a global phenomenon. it's the at&t network -- securing a world of new opportunities. ♪

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coming up, outfront, a blind activist in china says america turned its back on him. and the feds step in after an outbreak of rapes in a montana town. now to our third story outfront. earlier tonight our own political contributor said mitt romney got punked by president

obama's trip to afghanistan. romney's senior adviser is outfront tonight for an exclusive conversation. good to see you, sir. appreciate your taking the time. i want to get straight to it because we've got a lot to talk about but i want to start there with afghanistan. mitt romney said he was pleased that the president went to afghanistan. do you think he made a mistake? should he have criticized him? should he not? are you happy with how he handled it? >> well, erin, thank you for having me on the show. no, i think it's entirely appropriate for the president as commander in chief to visit our troops serving overseas. that's what he did in afghanistan and i think he needs to communicate with our armed forces, let them know exactly what it is we expect of them, what their mission is, and to express his appreciation for the courageous way in which they carry it out. i think that's entirely appropriate. >> do you think that mitt romney should have taken the opportunity to say, well, here's how i would do it differently, or i wouldn't keep our troops

until 2025 or whatever it might have been rather than just saying that he was pleased or do you think you got the messaging right from the mitt romney side? >> well, look, where we had a difference of opinion with the obama campaign was late last week when they produced an ad that suggested that mitt romney would have arrived at a different decision in carrying out or issuing the kill order for osama bin laden. look, when osama bin laden was killed a year ago, that was a momentous occasion, and at the time governor romney congratulated the president, he congratulated our armed forces and our intelligence community. this brought us together as a nation, and it was sad to see a year later the president use osama bin laden as the opportunity to issue a divisive and partisan political attack against his opponent. that was more than a bit unseemly. >> i want to ask you about, obviously, the big event here. your foreign policy spokesman

quit two weeks on the job. he's gone. he had come under fire, of course, as we're all aware now by conservative activists for the fact that he was gay. he had supported a u.n. gay rights resolution. the family research council president, tony perkins, was -- said he was glad. he said brian fisher, the radio host had attacked him and he said, i quote, when he quit, he said, this is a huge win. did he leave because he was gay? >> well, first let me correct you. he wasn't two weeks on the job. he was scheduled to start may 1 and of course we were disappointed that he chose to resign ahead of his start date. we tried to persuade him to stay. look, we hired rick because he was supremely qualified to serve as our foreign policy spokesman. this is a guy who spent eight years at the u.s. mission to the united nations. he served four different

ambassadors, including john bolden. we thought he would have filled a very specialized need that we had for someone who could speak on foreign policy and national security matters. we tried to persuade him to stay. he felt for his own reasons that he couldn't serve effectively and we were disappointed that he decided to resign. >> so you did try to persuade him to stay? i'm just curious, because his statement and i just want to quote it directly to get your response. he said, quote, my ability to speak clearly and forcefully on the issues has been greatly diminished by the hyperpartisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign. obviously it sounds there, reading between the lines, that the focus on his personal decisions, on perhaps his sexuality, was why he chose to go. maybe not because it was happening in your campaign, but it was happening by others in the republican party? >> yeah, and that's

disappointing. wherever there are voices of intolerance within the party or the democratic party for that matter, it doesn't matter where it's coming from, it's disappointing. the governor has taken the opportunity in the past to denounce those voices of intolerance. but in rick's case, and i can't speak for rick, but i think he felt that his effectiveness was going to be compromised, that he couldn't carry out the job the way that he wanted to do it. but let me tell you with respect to governor romney and his record of hiring, it is based strictly on qualifications. we do not take into consideration nonfactors like race or ethnicity or sexual orientation. we look for the best possible people to do the job. we thought rick would have been the best person to be our foreign policy pokesman. we tried to persuade him to stay on and are disappointed that he resigned. >> one thing that i want to ask on the general motors bailout. i'm curious about this. i wanted to play a very quick sound bite for you about what

mitt romney said today. here's what he had to say about how he'd handle the economy versus president obama. >> people ask me, well, what would you do to get the economy going? i say well, look at what the president's done and do the opposite. >> now, of course this weekend you said the president followed mitt romney's advice on the auto bailout, which is a little confusing there because he said do the opposite of what the said but also confusing obviously because of that "new york times" op-ed titled "let detroit go bankrupt" written by mitt romney. it sounds like you and mitt romney aren't really on the same page. >> well, let's go back and look at that op-ed that the governor wrote back in november of 2008. at the time nobody was suggesting that the auto companies go through a bankruptcy process, but we felt -- or the governor felt that the only way they could reorganize and shed excess costs would be to do that under the protection of the bankruptcy laws. just writing them an endless series of government checks was

going to seal their doom. instead they needed to go through a process so they could skinny down. and the fact that these car companies are profitable today is because they got rid of those excess costs. their employee costs are lower. that is not because of some check they got from government. that's because of the reorganization that was carried out under the protection of the bankruptcy law, which is what mitt romney advocated and it's eventually the course that barack obama followed. >> do you support what barack obama did with general motors unions? because it sounds like you do. >> with the unions, no, i don't think the governor would have put as much ownership of the company into the hands of the uaw because what he did in that case was to set aside bankruptcy laws, subodor nate the interests of secured creditors to the union. that to us seemed like playing political favorites. but in terms of setting these companies on the course toward profitability, what did that was the managed bankruptcy process,

not some check from the government. it was the governor who was first out of the box advocating for that. >> just to make it clear from what you said, it sounds like mitt romney now supports what the president did because the president followed mitt romney's advice on the auto bailout. >> no, what i'm saying is that the president followed the advice as it was laid out by mitt romney back in november of 2008. it took the president seven months after that point to finally move these companies into a bankruptcy process. it was the bankruptcy process that got these companies to skinny down, to shed excess costs, to lower their employee costs and that is why they're profitable today, not because they got a check from government. >> eric, thanks very much and good to see you. a blind chinese activist walked out of the american embassy in beijing today, but he says he didn't want to and he fears for his life. outfront story four next. ok! who gets occasional constipation,

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welcome back to the second half of "outfront." we start the second half with stories we care about, where we focus on our own reporting from the front lines. well, 13 people are being charged in connection with the hazing at florida a&m university. this includes the hazing death of drum major robert champion.

11 of the 13 suspects are charged with felony hazing. all 13 charged with a misdemeanor. an attorney for champion's parents are disappointed more severe charges aren't filed. champion died shortly in taking part in an annual rite of passage where pledges run down the aisle of a bus while being punched. junior seau has died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. seau spent 20 seasons in the nfl, 13 years with the san diego chargers, his last seven with the miami dolphins and new england patriots. he did have some troubles in 2010. he was charged with domestic violence and hours later drove his car off a cliff landing on a beach. the accident was blamed on a lack of sleep. seau was only 43 years old. french presidential candidates faced off in the only televised debate. things got heated when nicholol sarkozy accused the other of

being a slanderr. the capital of mali continued with the junta capturing hundreds of people. in march they toppled the democratically elected president while they ended up handing power to an interim government that continued to exercise power over key areas. the state department said that it will continue to assess the needs on the ground and determine support if needed, but our understanding as of tonight is that more than 320,000 people have been displaced in mali. it has been 272 days since this country lost its top credit rating. what are we doing to get it back? today a new report showed businesses added 119,000 jobs in april that. comes ahead of friday's key national jobs report. economists polled by cnn money expect the u.s. to add 160,000 jobs and that number not enough to keep up with population growth.

but first, our fourth outfront story, an exclusive and damning set of details from the blind human rights activist in china whose story is captivating the world and causing a crisis in u.s./china relations. did the u.s. turn its back on him. he walked out of the embassy in beijing today after 24 years where he was seen with america's ambassador to china, gary locke. the question is why did he leave? we spoke to chen exclusively on the phone and asked him. [ speaking foreign language ] >> chen says he fears for his life now that he's on his own. he regrets his decision to leave. he says he has a message for the president.

[ speaking foreign language ] >> the situation is overshad owing the secretary of state, hillary clinton. she is visiting china right now. stan grant joins us along with former state department official jamie reuben and fran townsend. stan, let me talk with you. pretty amazing that you were able to get chen on the phone. obviously we heard him there in chinese, the translation in english appeared on the screen for viewers. can you tell us what he sounded like, what his emotion was like? that doesn't always come through in another language. >> reporter: erin, you know, we spoke to him, it was 3:00 a.m. thursday morning beijing time when we actually got through to him. we called him in his hospital bed. sitting next to him was his wife. this is a man who is in fear for his life. he wants to leave china. he doesn't trust chinese officials. he says threats are being made to kill he and his wife if they stay in the country any longer,

so this was a man who sounded very concerned. he was speaking very quickly. often was taking longish pauses, you could hear him gulping at various times. his wife also came on the phone and sounded very nervous. in fact she said she is not even free to walk around the hospital. she's afraid to step outside the door because of someone who is listening and talking to him. this is someone that has changed dramatically pleading to leave the country. >> we're going to find out what happened and what pressures might be on him but also on the secretary of state. but what else did he tell you about what's happened to his family? i know we had heard reports that perhaps his wife and children had been beaten by chinese officials. were you able to get answers to any of those questions? >> reporter: absolutely. this has been crucial in turning him around. initially he was telling u.s. officials he wanted to stay in

china and continue to make a life here. that's why he left the embassy. after speaking to his wife, he realizes the threats are too great. he says after officials realized that he fled and escaped house arrest, they then came for his wife. i'll quote here from what he told us. she was tied to a chair by police for two days, then they carried thick sticks to our house threatening to beat her to death. now they have moved into the house. he says that threats were made to his wife that if he did not leave the embassy, that she would be taken back there and this is the fate that was waiting for her. people were standing by waiting with weapons to really exact revenge here. >> and so this is why he's saying he wants to leave the country completely now, right? >> reporter: absolutely, absolutely. he wants to get out of the country. i think as you just played a moment ago, appealing directly to president obama to make this happen. he also said if you talk to secretary of state hillary clinton, tell her we need to get out of the country. it's so much more difficult now.

when he was in the embassy, he had some protection. now he's out, he's a chinese citizen in a chinese hospital, under chinese law and someone the chinese government has long considered to be an enemy of the state. >> jamie, what can the united states do, especially when he's going directly to the president on the phone? stan's the only one to talk to him. what can the u.s. do, and if we don't do anything, does it show we don't have any power or control in china? >> first of all, no american administration can make china or any other country do what they want to their own citizens. what's new here and i think is good news for those of us who care about human rights is for about ten years now, human rights has been off the agenda between the united states and china. republicans, democrats, it's no longer a big debate in congress the way it used to be. congress used to threaten to cut off trade with china because of issues like individual dissidents. that era has passed. so this tragedy for mr. chen has

brought human rights way up the agenda for the united states and china. what i think will happen realistically is secretary of state clinton and the president, when he's in contact with their counterparts, will now be raising mr. chen's case time after time and making sure that they bring up his name in conversations, asking about him, say we're still watching him, we're still concerned about his fate. and i think that will probably for a time prevent the kind of abuse that he was suffering when he was in virtual house arrest in the provinces just a couple of weeks ago. what transpired in the embassy, i have not received a firsthand report. clearly high-level american officials, the highest possible level for this kind of issue, an assistant secretary of state, department legal adviser who have long both have long experience, harold coe the legal adviser in the previous administration was assistant

secretary for human rights. >> right. >> so these are human rights officials who obviously worked with him and may not have gotten all that he would have wanted. >> but, fran, doesn't this show that the u.s. lost some sort of a diplomatic battle with china? >> these people are very experienced who met with him. this should not be shocking that his family was being threatened, that he was unaware of that. the question is did they discuss this with him? did he understand? what he's saying to us now is that he didn't understand the implications of his leaving the embassy. it is true to say we are in a far weaker position than we would have been if he had been in the embassy. quite frankly, he was left at the hospital, according to stan's report, and he really is now -- we've left him at the mercy of a chinese government that clearly is threatening his wife and he wants to leave. i mean this is -- it's one of those things the president has spoken quite frequently about we're a country of values that must live by them even when it's inconvenient. this was an inconvenient right for the human rights issue to

come as the secretary of state was arriving. >> i see how it puts this on the agenda, but there's this loss of face for the u.s. which is with a lot of country, you can't tell a country what to do but the u.s. would have more leverage, and with china, we don't. >> we don't have a lot of leverage with china and haven't had it with a decade is the point i'm making. >> yes. >> there was a time in our country when majorities in congress were prepared to put our trading relationship aside, on hold in favor of human rights. that majority of democrats and republicans are gone. >> yes. >> so during the past administration and this administration, human rights is on the agenda but let's call it fourth or fifth. so for the moment this individual, dissident's fate is now being discussed the way, for example, a decade ago a particular dissident who was being discussed during the clinton years or the one before, who is in the u.s. embassy really for this, a year and a half during the first president bush, but he announced that he

wanted to leave the country. he stayed in the embassy 18 months before he was eventually released. >> final word to you, stan, i just want to give everyone a sense of what the repercussions really are. you've been trying to go to his home to find out what's been happening with him and now you spoke to him on the phone. you're being followed, right? >> reporter: yeah, absolutely. we're followed whenever we try to go out and speak to dissidents and the authorities here tap our phones, they watch our e-mails and know where we're going. they call our drivers en route. they call people we're going to speak to. in fact in the past few days people we have spoken to in connection to this have been arrested, have been taken away for questioning. some are still being held in jail or under house arrest. this goes to show how serious they take this. another point that is important is the vulnerability of chen. we tried to get to his village in the past and have been physically attacked. we've been beaten and chased out

of there. they do this to us, they do this to him. any criticism from the outside world or other countries often 'em boldens these officials and authorities as they have said to chen guangcheng in the past, they're above the law in china, they can do whatever they want. >> thanks very much to all three of you. i want to make the point of how brave stan grant's reporting is to continue to do this, but they also have tried to intimidate him. the u.s. government has launched an investigation into a series of rapes in an american town. did the city and police look the other way, mishandle those investigations? the town's mayor outfront next. so, ah, your seat good? got the mirrors all adjusted? you can see everything ok? just stay off the freeways, all right? i don't want you going out on those yet. mmm-hmm. and just leave your phone in your purse.

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we're back with our outer circle where we reach out to our sources around the world. we begin in afghanistan tonight where a powerful car bomb killed seven people, wounded 17. just two hours after president obama left the country. obviously it raises serious concerns about the lack of security in that country. nick payton walsh is in kabul and i asked him when security will get better. >> reporter: almost two different afghanistans. president barack obama able to fly in under the cover of darkness and address the american people while many afghan people were asleep. a blast two hours after he left waking many people as a suicide bomber targeted a maximum security compound, often lived in by foreigners, killing seven afghans and injuring ten

schoolchildren nearby caught in the crossfire, an act condemned by the united nations saying the taliban should have known there was a school 200 meters away. despite the rhetoric we heard, the president reminding afghans that they aren't that much safer after a decade of nato being here. now to london, the british spy, his body was found naked, decomposing in a padlocked bag in his bathtub. everybody was wondering what happened to him but some said it was a sex game gone wrong. now they say he was probably unlawfully killed but they say it's unlikely they will ever know what happened. that's what the coroner announced in her final report today. i asked whether the coroner made any links between his profession as a spy and his death. >> reporter: well, erin, we just don't know. the coroner said there is no evidence directly linking his death to his work, but she also had scathing criticism for the british secret service, saying

they failed to report that he was missing for about a week, despite the fact that he missed several meetings. also that the mi-6 failed to hand over critical evidence, including nine memory sticks that they found at his workplace. now, what we do know is that both the coroner and the lead detective on the case believe that another person was with him when he died. likely, they say, the person who locked the bag and placed it in the bathtub. police are now searching for that person. erin. >> it is a bizarre story. let's check in with anderson with a look at what's coming up top of the hour. >> we're keeping them honest on the program. an entire busload of students watched as fellow band member robert champion was beaten to death. watched him kicked, suffocated and watched him die. today 13 people were charged in his death but not one of them with murder or manslaughter. we'll speak with the mother of robert champion who says hazing doesn't begin to describe what happened to her son on that bus.

also an apparent suicide by nfl legend junior seau. what caused him to put a gun to his chest and then pull the trigger? seau is one of several nfl players who have committed suicide in recent years. we'll speak to dr. sanjay gupta and see if brain trauma played a role. including the ridiculist at the top of the hour. >> all right, looking forward to seeing all of those stories. now our fifth story outfront. 80 rapes in three years for the college town of missoula. so staggering that the u.s. department of justice has launched an investigation. at the heart of the matter is not whether the assaults occurred but how the local police, the county attorney and the university of montana handled the reports of sexual violence. was there a cover-up? a look the oar way? missoula county attorney says he's going to cooperate but he says the federal government is overreaching its authority. >> we find it extremely ironic

that the u.s. department of justice, an agency dedicated to the preservation and protection of rights of people in this country refuses to tell us what we have supposedly done wrong. >> in february the university of montana came under fire after a saudi arabian exchange student was notified he was accused of rape. he left the country before police could investigate. the mayor says the city is doing everything it can to prosecute violent crimes against women and he joins me on the phone. mayor, thank you very much for coming on the phone. i saw this headline, 80 rapes in a few years, i was shocked like a lot of people were. but the reason there's a doj investigation is they're saying that the police department, the university failed to adequately look into these, investigate. have you gotten enough information to determine whether there's anything to that? >> you know, thanks, erin. my sense of things today is that the justice department received

enough information, complaints, heard enough allegations and did enough of their own research through records that they believe an investigation is warranted. we're doing everything we can to cooperate with that investigation. i have nothing but faith in my police force. those men and women are committed to serving the community, but i can tell you we can always get better and if there are problems with the way we're doing business, we're very interested in understanding what those problems are and remedying those problems. >> there are reports, women have said, that they have complained they have come into the police station with a rape allegation and been handed a pamphlet that says, look, it's a crime to falsie report rape and that was a standard -- appears to be standard reading material. have you been able to find out whether that is true? >> you know, in fact it's not true, erin. the fact of the matter is that

in that particular case, the victim had had a conversation with the chief about false reporting. the chief mentioned there is some literature out there that he does not agree with, has not agreed with and in fact did a study locally that proved that very few reports in missoula are false. but that report does exist. he provided it at her request. i should also say one rape is too many, one sexual assault is too many. but 80 sexual assaults in three years in a community our size, in a university city, unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on the way you look at it, is about average per capita. we're actually not that unusual. >> wow. >> the profile of these cases certainly is, and we want to deal with them. >> all right. well, thank you very much,

mayor, for coming outfront. obviously we'll be talking to the mayor as we continue to cover this story the next few days. the e block is next. for three hours a week, i'm a coach. but when i was diagnosed with prostate cancer... i needed a coach. our doctor was great, but with so many tough decisions i felt lost. unitedhealthcare offered us a specially trained rn who helped us weigh and understand all our options. for me cancer was as scary as a fastball is to some of these kids. but my coach had hit that pitch before. turning data into useful answers. we're 78,000 people looking out for 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. if you made a list of countries from around the world... ...with the best math scores. ...the united states would be on that list.

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♪ that should do it. enjoy your new shower. [ door opens, closes ] the united states of america isn't as popular as it used to be for tourists. this started after 9/11 when the united states added visa restrictions and increased security to the travel process. now, this sent international tourists to other destinations, some in europe where it was

easier to get visas. in 2000, america had a 17% slice of tourism spending. that number is now just about 11%. so for the first time ever, america has started marketing itself as a tourist destination to everybody else. the $12.3 million ad campaign targets the tourists that are going to spend a lot of money in america. hey, canada, we're talking about you guys, japan and the united kingdom. in a few weeks this ad will appear in brazil and south korea. it is part of a campaign and has a song by roseanne cash, highlighting popular destinations like the grand canyon, the french quarter in new orleans and of course new york's times square. now, this is an amazing country, but there is a problem. when people come to our country, one of the first things they see is not the grand canyon or times square, it's our airports. the problem is america has a lot of bad airports. travel and leisure magazine released their list of the worst airports in this country.